Last week Reuters reported that the EU is working to create a micro-finance facility for the unemployed:"The European Commission said on Thursday it would create a 100 million euro ($141.1 million) micro-finance facility to provide credit to small businesses and encourage people who have lost jobs to start such enterprises."Read the whole article here. Continue Reading >>

If you like data, you'll like Kivalytics. This Kiva App is a nifty set of graphs looking at loans.

For example, you can view a bar graph of loans by country, and see that Peru has by far the most loan dollars, followed by Cambodia. Hovering over any of the bars gives you the exact number of loans. Some other things I learned from Kivalytics:

Food and retail are the two most popular sectors, education and entertainment are the smallest

Ok, almost. We launched data snapshots this week. For the first time you can grab a snapshot of the Kiva data through a single download here at build.kiva.org. Many of you working on data have been asking for this to simplify your study. For now we only capture individual information for a loan or a lender, but this will expand going forward as we have feedback from those of you using the snapshots. For those already doing data analysis on Kiva, we encourage you to switch to snapshots where possible to reduce load on our API servers. For those of you pulling extensive amounts of Kiva...

We are delighted to once again offer Kiva lenders the opportunity to support borrowers in Ecuador! After over a year of inactivity, Kiva has recently teamed up with the Fundación ESPOIR to support the great work they do in helping bring financial and non-financial services to hard-to-reach areas in Ecuador.ESPOIR lends to 100% women through 5 branches throughout the country. They are pioneers of the "Credit with Education" methodology wherein borrower recieve not only loans, but also business and life skills training. In addition, one of their branches has a medical clinic that is available... Continue Reading >>

Calling all university students, professors and alumni! Boost school spirit and support for Kiva by checking out our Campus Kiva website, and keep your eyes peeled for a new and improved version set to come out later this summer. Search for your school or alma mater, join the team, and stay connected through the power of microlending!

For inspiration, watch an entertaining video that one of our stellar chapters at Luther College has created about the value of a $25 loan to an entrepreneur around the world. Learn more about Luther College and their success by visiting their...

Kiva World, one of the earliest and most coveted Kiva Apps, was created by a team of developers in Northern Italy.The company is called Wonsys S.r.l. and was founded by Simone Dall'Angelo, Michele Finotto and Matteo Nodari.And although I tried to convince Kiva to send me there for this interview. I settled on a few email exchanges. Kiva World is a user-friendly google maps mashup of real time loans on Kiva.The Wonsys team describes it best: “It's nice to have a glance at world map and see what's happening, who...

Kiva World, one of the earliest and most coveted Kiva Apps, was created by a team of developers in Northern Italy.The company is called Wonsys S.r.l. and was founded by Simone Dall'Angelo, Michele Finotto and Matteo Nodari.And although I tried to convince Kiva to send me there for this interview, I settled on a few email exchanges. Kiva World is a user-friendly google maps mashup of real time loans on Kiva.The Wonsys team describes it best: “It's nice to have a glance at world map and see what's happening,...

Thursday, Kiva quietly launched in Liberia, and Kiva Lenders noticed - within an hour all loans were fully funded, despite the dozens of other loans on the website!Kiva’s first partner in Liberia is called Liberian Enterprise Assistance Program, or LEAP. The logo demonstrates that this acronym is not a lucky mistake, but an intentional choice to demonstrate that with a micro-loan from LEAP – you can leap into a better life!Liberia is freshly recovering from two major wars that finally came to an end in 2003. The wars created serious problems with the infrastructure all over the country,... Continue Reading >>

UPDATE: Due to a breaking story on CNN, this story has been rescheduled for next Thursday, July 2. Don't forget to watch Money and Main Street on CNN tonight!Tune in at 8pm Eastern, 7pm Central, 6pm Mountain and 5pm Pacific time.The show will be featuring some of Kiva's first US entrepreneurs! Continue Reading >>

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Kiva connects millions of people through lending to alleviate poverty. Read about our partners, programs and loans here. Or check out stories straight from the field on the Kiva Fellows Blog. Have questions? Send them our way at blog@kiva.org.